


Nasty, brutish, and short

by greendragon_templar



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 18th Century, Gen, Historical Hetalia, Pirate AU, Scurvy, and about health conditions, before he accomplishes anything, but its just too disgusting, can be viewed either as a human au or as nationverse, could've gone into more detail about treatments, england becomes a pirate and dies, i dump all my unnecessary knowledge about pirates and run, rated t because there's somewhat gross descriptions of disease i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 12:05:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18249497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greendragon_templar/pseuds/greendragon_templar
Summary: The red flag’s raised, and with it, every one of them is resigned to whatever follows.





	Nasty, brutish, and short

Arthur admires the extent of the ship’s stores with a smile. No one else is in the vicinity, but if they were, they’d chastise him for being overly self-congratulatory. He’s satisfied that he has the right to be. He breathes in the scents of oak and malt, unavoidably tinged with salt, and has never been more at ease with the choice he made to cast his old life aside. _Defiance_ , rechristened _Vigilant_ , is more than capable of what the boatswain estimates will be a six-month journey, before returning to a West Indian port.

It’s a fresh experience, however; his last excursion on the water began in March and was finished before the height of the summer. Pulled from service with the navy, or rather, _seduced_ from it, he needs to earn his place.

“Better a quartermaster here than a navy captain for a thousand lifetimes. If your brethren hate you here, you’ll know it, but you’ll be grateful,” the surgeon’s mate advises over dinner, and Arthur’s inclined to agree. “Do you know how lucky you are?”

He was voted in; he understands full well the inherent value of his position, or in the least, the depth of responsibility it carries. “Does it matter? I won’t see any reward for it until we take a prize.”

“Good. Keep yourself humble.”

The navy’s hierarchy has no place and no memory within these walls. It’s only when Arthur thinks a little too deeply on it that he finds himself startled that all their quarters are identical, that for the time being, they break bread and share fresh meat and eggs and cheese with no regard for the oversight of a self-important captain. All Arthur needs to know about their current captain is that he’s seen action before and is the most clearheaded of any of them in the haze of an engagement.

“And the medicine chest? Surgeon’s chest, rather. Is everything well stocked?”

“More than adequate, but I understand less than half of what the master says to me. I can take inventory, though, using Woodall.”

“Don’t fail to inform me, should anything else be required.”

“It’s a bit too late for that,” the surgeon’s mate remarks, with the rock of the ship to validate his argument. “Now we’re sailing under the sight of God. All our comforts are fleeting.”

The red flag’s raised, and with it, every one of them is resigned to whatever follows.

\--

For all the absence of authority, everything is properly ordered and well-maintained. When Arthur’s not keeping watch he retires early. They smoke on deck, refrain from fights and drinking in excess, and tend to their weaponry with a tenderness scarcely afforded to them by the societies from which the majority fled.

It’s like clockwork, ticking and turning well outside the clearly demarcated boundaries of lawful conduct. Many here would argue that their laws and codes provide a far quicker road to happiness – however temporary. Those among them who’ve never shed blood are as guilty as the mass-murderer next to them, by virtue of their occupation.

It ought to be their greatest risk. Capture _is_ their greatest risk, in their minds, before they lose a gunner to the flux.

His treatment and death are shrouded in terms that Arthur understands only because he was given an inventory of the surgeon’s things and has made something of a conscious effort to know all the key procedures taking place onboard. Grated nutmeg. Cinnamon. Marmalade of quince. Laudanum. Their entire supply of lemon syrup is exhausted during the endeavour, the gunner’s fight for life, and he doesn’t question it; it isn’t his domain.

Everyone’s relieved when he dies – dies in agony, it seems. Why? Aren’t they sorry? Before he’s cast into the sea, finally freed from quarantine, one brave soul creeps forward to inspect the corpse’s legs. “No bruises. No bleeding.”

“Why does it matter?” Arthur snaps, and the other man stumbles.

“Why? Because he isn’t the first of many. Thank God for sauerkraut and malt! Let’s hope we can feed the pigs a bit longer.”

He can’t think of any suitable response at the time, but at any rate, it’s a good enough reminder to check the stores the next time he’s doling out provisions to the men. They’ll have to slaughter the pigs in less than a fortnight, but the chickens should last a bit longer, meaning they have eggs and the promise of meat for the immediate future. What most of the crew are only learning now is that there’s traces of slime forming in the water barrels and it stinks up the hold. It’s unfortunate, and makes Arthur wince, but they’ll bear it. It’s been a few weeks already; they can take this, and far more.

Arthur surveys his own provisions: ship’s biscuit, salt beef, beer, cheese, butter, pickled cabbage. Dried peas and oats too, he recalls, but he won’t make use of it immediately. They shouldn’t be at any risk – not immediately, anyway. Didn’t he specify they were to take on as much fresh water as they could?

Aren’t things going exactly as he predicted, at the beginning?

\--

Their first action brings an assortment of wounds but blessedly, nothing more. For days at a time Arthur familiarises himself with the varying sounds and sights of human agony and takes careful note of under what conditions their two casualties pass.

“They knew this would happen. Don’t mock their memory by presuming otherwise,” the captain warns, with rather too much good humour. He’s very comfortable in his position, for now; there’ll be no elections for some time if he continues his current streak. “And you were right to join with us. Take some comfort in your prize.”

Arthur notes, with interest, that most of their prize is sugar, and drugs with Latin names. They coerce one of the musicians aboard the Spanish merchant ship into joining with them, and the pains of routine are temporarily assuaged.

Gold and alcohol flow. Spirits are buoyant. The monotony of Arthur’s days following the victory are consumed first with adjudicating a disagreement between two crewmembers regarding the accused theft of a wheel of cheese and several days’ worth of oats, culminating in a drunken brawl that directly defies multiple Articles. Arthur feels glad, even righteous, when he’s deciding the punishment; the navy hardened him to floggings.

But it isn’t the flogging that kills the troublemaker. It’s an infection, an inflammation, that takes him, but it’s accompanied by other signs that warn of something far worse. It begins with a fever – and fevers aren’t _uncommon_ , aren’t uncommon symptoms for a _myriad_ of ailments, of course – which progress rapidly to swellings in the legs, that manifest only a day before the victim’s demise. It’s this which makes them all shudder.

Arthur tries not to feel responsible, but more than that, he tries not to assign any greater meaning to the situation than it calls for.

“Flogged him too fucking hard. Tore the fucking skin off his back!” roars the captain, out of sight of the other men, and Arthur inwardly withdraws. If he _could_ , if he _can_ , he’ll try to detach himself from the experience entirely, divorce the current view of his own scarred hands from the memory of how his fingers curled around the handle of the whip. Just protocol. Just protocol, officious. Defiance of the Articles is deserving only of condemnation, and since when have deaths onboard been unusual, especially at the start? They should all be grateful they’ve been thus spared from the calamities which have devastated other vessels for centuries, and have so far been eluded, owing to Arthur’s leadership.

“Let it serve as an _example_ —”

“I don’t want examples, I want to see _moderation_ , without casualties fucking over our chances.”

“And your authority in the matter is no greater than mine! You have no jurisdiction here. Your judgment must concede!”

The captain recoils. “You won’t fail us. A navy rat like you will not dare to fail us.”

“No,” Arthur replies, colder and coarser than stone; “I won’t.” He shakes in the aftermath, somehow managing to forget that the definition of _captain_ here is not at all like what he’s grown up understanding. But it’s not altogether a relief. A bit of familiarity, a bit of sturdy ground on which to stand, would not go amiss.

At any rate, the dead man will fall from collective memory as easily as flesh falls from bone, if everything goes as Arthur desires it. Not only an error on the record, a mark against his name, but also, a _sign_. Disease will tear them all to shreds far quicker than the whip can.

\--

“I’d tear out his heart if he wasn’t already dead!”

It’s all that needs to be said for their latest misfortune, and the complete _ire_ behind the captain’s statement speaks to them all. Arthur, for whom burials are becoming an increasingly common occurrence – far more than they ever used to be – observes several members of the crew drape the shroud over their navigator’s body, whose features can hardly be discerned any longer through the dark blood crusted around a hole in his forehead. If he concentrates hard enough, Arthur imagines that the stink of alcohol still follows the dead wherever he goes. They should have known better. He should have known better. A drunkard for a navigator, and one with enough fear left in him, moreover, to make amending the situation hopeless.

Is this why he joined, what he imagined?

The replacement, more suited to a future career as a sailing master than a navigator, draws them far too near to the coast, and they nearly run completely aground. Weeks pass slower than wounds heal. Not for the first time, Arthur thinks there must be hardly a waking moment when he isn’t yawning near the exposed keel of the ship, taking note of the deep scars on the hull, sending out small parties who return with subpar wood and almost no fresh meat. Wind gusts along the surface of the beach, throwing sand into their faces.

No springs and no fruit. _No springs and no fruit_. Turtles cannot sustain them forever. Two weeks earlier than Arthur predicted, they resort to slaughtering the chickens, and then it’s bone soup for the entire period for which they ought to have been kept. In a different lifetime, the smell of beer would already be making him ill. He’s not the only one to nearly break a tooth on hardtack, barely softened by the beer.

The glare of the sun, reflected on sand, is far worse than that from the sea.

\--

Bailing out the hold’s never been the ideal way to pass an evening, and the threat of the thunder over their heads isn’t making it any better. Thankfully they’ve men to spare, managing to keep a healthy crew for the full month onshore, but not even a thousand hands can salvage everything.

“The water’s putrid anyway!” Arthur says, in response to the concerned glance of a crewmember at a leaking barrel. “The meat’s over there,” he says, and begins to feel out of breath. “Put the meat somewhere high, take the oats—” Their voices echo more and more as they pull from the hold everything they can spare, and relocate everything else.

“Christ!” someone cries, just within earshot, and seawater laps up against their shins.

Hours and hours and hours, moonless, miserable. The air crackles with silenced frustrations as much as the lightning, seemingly all too ready to strike them all down. It may as well.

_God has damned my choice. Here I fall, and for what?_

Nothing helps. Within a week, while the ship miraculously sails onward – though notably, and painfully off-course, only barely reined in, and altered a dozen times, after several votes – Arthur’s tossing away pounds of oats and peas, thick with mould. Meat lasts far longer, but only worsens their thirst.

The rains come and go like bad dreams, provoking sleepless nights, watching and waiting.

Yet no diseases touch them; the flux makes no return. Fearing the worst, Arthur’s made sure to ascertain that all the surgeon’s things are in order (and they are, for now).

Why, then, is he so afraid? Whose taunts and threats are these, if not the rain’s?

\--

Arthur prefers to engage with the enemy face to face, never trusting of firearms, and it’s a lucky thing that the captain understands. But his sight’s wavering. The heat of action does nothing for his nerves and nothing for his hands.

He grapples with the sword of one of many guards aboard the merchant vessel, glancing ever and again at his wrists to ensure he doesn’t bend them too far. The cacophony of cannon-fire drowns out the pains and cries of the present, replacing it with a dull ringing. He grinds his teeth.

His lungs are filling with smoke, but it’s better not to hack it up. Not immediately. Not when his palms are bright red and steaming and he can’t even get a good grip of his weapon, misjudging, and shakily delivering every other punch.

Arthur’s opponent drags a fist over his jaw and then he’s spitting blood, pulling back enough that he has the second he needs to remember how his fingers work. A lunge, silent but for his heart. The dagger sinks in somewhere between the man’s ribs. Arthur doesn’t dare look down.

The enemy slumps, heaving, and Arthur must proceed. It feels like victory, _tastes_ like victory.

_So why does the captain, in his own domain, not see it? Why is he—_

There’s no time even to retrieve his dagger, and he begins to understand the new course of affairs only once they’re away as fast as the winds allow, crippled and beaten. Most of the crew, believably confident at the outset, eager for something (anything) to disrupt their boredom and feelings of hopelessness, have the pallor and countenance of the undead.

Feet drag, heads loll. They double-over at the waist. Most make no immediate effort to assist in repairs, nor their complete safety and escape from their enemy.

Arthur grabs the nearest man by the shoulder, and his eyes are bloodshot. There are less men than he remembers. Less talk than there usually is, less jubilance. A missing finger, missing ear, pools of blood – since when have they been so _careless_?

“What in God’s name is wrong with all of you?”

The man collapses partly back against the ship’s rail, as though he was the one Arthur stabbed. “We couldn’t—"

“Do you understand how this makes us look? To them? To your brethren?”

“All of us is the same. Like a dark cloud passed over.”

“That isn’t—” Arthur starts, but rushes to the surgeon regardless. There are flies on his lips. It’s as though the plagues really _have_ blown over them all, struck them down, with no intent to cease. If this is to be their punishment for their very existence, none of them have any right to debate it. They must simply term it _inevitable_.

Released, the other pirate sinks completely to the deck.

\--

It’s just a waiting game, now, where the only certain thing is the outcome. Part of the game lies in waking early, stretching his arms and legs and clambering out of his hammock, fearing the slightest twinge or ache. It’s baring his teeth in the reflective surfaces of wine bottles and keeping his living quarters clean, insisting that the surgeon fumigate his own as soon as possible. It’s doling out fresh fish to the men, alongside all the spices and sugar they can afford. They follow it up with oil of vitriol and satisfy themselves nothing more can be done.

Hundreds of years ago, desperate soldiers would lob their dead over castle walls, in a bid to infect those within. There’s no need for that here; they’ll just as readily kill _themselves_.

They stagger onwards on different paces to the same finish. The symptoms of the first to die set out the road that all will walk if nothing changes in between, and it’s never been an uglier sight. Arthur stays well away from the surgeon’s quarters and excuses himself by stating that his responsibilities lie elsewhere.

A slow beginning rapidly cascades into something _formidable_. The stragglers, stumbling, holding their teeth in their fingers, are all buried hardly a fortnight before the fate awaiting them all is rendered unarguably clear. The captain’s complaining of aches in the joints only two days before Arthur notes the same.

 _All symptoms of disease or infection, known or unknown, are to be taken to the surgeon immediately_. He’s said it from the very beginning, but at this rate, they’ll run out of remedies even before they run out of manpower.

They retain barely enough order in their ranks to again cast a vote on their route and, more privately, ascertain which of the living can steer the ship while the others perish in droves. No sooner have their votes been cast than Arthur retires to be away from the rest, itching at his gums, and blood fills the space under his fingernails, dripping down the lines of his hands.

A day later and it’s no longer painful just to wake, but to _walk_ , to be under the sun, living and breathing. “You’ll only worsen it,” he says, with disgust, to the younger crewmembers he catches hacking away at the dead flesh in their mouths, carving holes in their legs to chase away the black blood. Arthur’s been lucky enough to escape the plague in his own lifetime and in his own town, but this is almost precisely how he’s always imagined it.

It’s far too much for two surgeons, one of whom was only put in his position due to his own interest in the field. Under their watch, the captain passes, and there’s no vote afterwards. Even if they did aim to put someone else in his place – and Arthur’s willing to claim he’d be a candidate – what chance is there he’d survive? What’s the merit of it? How could they trust a captain who stumbles in a faint at any given moment, regarding with increasing detachment the burials – three or four at a time?

\--

It’s not up to Arthur whether he lives or dies; his body’s decided it’s going to drag him to his grave and he no longer has any say in the matter. It longs for death, _cries out_ for it. He empties his stomach over the side of the ship at the stench of his own gums. He can’t move; he doesn’t _want_ to move. Without fail his mouth is always filling with blood, _putrid_ blood, like that from an old wound, and it wakes him when his hunger doesn’t.

Just like all the others, his legs and chest begin to resemble the rotting vegetables that Arthur initially convinced himself would be their saviour. Streaked with gangrene, it’s hard to resist cutting open his limbs the way he told those other boys not to.

In the least, the surgeon’s still alive.

“What is it?” Arthur says, lungs scarcely cooperating to get the words out. “What’s going to happen to me?”

The surgeon shies away, evidently just as deterred by the smell of rot, and Arthur doesn’t blame him for a moment.

“You’re Dutch. Someone snatched you from your ship. You don’t want to be here.”

Arthur would laugh at himself if it didn’t hurt so much.

“It’s a disease of the liver, isn’t it? Or the spleen? I can’t remember. But we’re being punished. Someone or something is keeping you alive. It must be because you didn’t come by choice.”

The surgeon doesn’t breathe a word, and maybe it’s just because he doesn’t understand, but nevertheless, he thankfully avoids the lancet. Instead, Arthur grows accustomed to the tastes of sugar and barley water and oil of vitriol, of cinnamon and ginger, but what effects it does have (and those are arguably little) seem pointless in contention with the worst of his symptoms.

Despite showing restraint in bleeding him earlier, the surgeon does bleed his gums, rubs them with a linen cloth dampened with honey and herbs and gunpowder. He’s seen others rinse their mouths with their own urine, so for the time being, he’s grateful, even if he wants it to end. He grows familiar with the names of different unguents and oils, the pungent but not unwelcome scents of sorrel, of camomile and dill and rosemary and thyme, of aniseed and coriander, applied to reduce the swelling on his legs.

“I think you want me to die,” he breathes, with the surgeon looming over him. “You do, and I can’t tell you you’re wrong.” The surgeon’s silent. “You want to kill me.”

He couldn’t defend himself if he tried.

\--

Waking in a cold sweat, it’s effort enough to ignore the senseless noise in his head, drowning out all traces of coherent thought. While being treated yesterday, he passed out more than once without so much as a warning, and the pattern seems fit to continue until he can no longer pull himself out of the cycle.

Arthur forces himself out from the ward and up to the deck, trembling to such a degree he nearly takes out his own eye by accident when reaching to wipe the blood from his jaw.

The exertion could kill him. It may as well. The deck’s silent; his vision’s blurred. They could pass land and he wouldn’t notice.

There’s no one left to take the watch.

No one left! It isn’t right. He pledged himself to the _Vigilant_ long ago, and he isn’t about to forget his promise.

Forcing himself to breathe, he takes the watch for the last time.

**Author's Note:**

> For writing this I relied on a combination of the knowledge I've used to write pirate fic in the past, a mixture of academic articles about pirate economics and developments of scurvy treatments, and John Woodall's 17th century text on the role of navy surgeons and recommended scurvy treatments. Tbh I probably did more research than I needed to in the context of the fic but it was fun anyway!


End file.
